Short version II Children as Currency

On December 9, 2015, I was invited by Michigan State’s House of Representatives to speak to their “Children, Family and Seniors Committee.” State Representative Tom Hooker asked me to speak after he read my personal account as an unlikely victim of Children’s Protective Services (CPS), resulting in an inconceivable atrocity. My personal account, “Mother & Child an American Atrocity,” http://citizensagainstcps.com/2014/06/01/welcome-to-our-first-blog/

The Michigan’s Governor’s Task Force on Child Abuse and Neglect, also invited me to speak to their committee on December 11, 2015. U. S. Senator Debbie Stabenow made this recommendation after reading “The CPS Comprehensive Report “Revised April 2016: http://citizensagainstcps.com/2014/06/02/56/ Below is a broad summary of my ‘Cause,’ minus my personal account.

***********************

Millions of American children are being used as currency, in Children Protective Services, ‘CPS’ known to the victims as Children as Currency policy, or ‘Kids for Cash.’1

In 2011, the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) reported, six million American children were “involved” in the Child Protective Services (CPS) with 650,000 to one million placed in foster care. The same report suggests that only 6 percent of these children had been in legitimate danger, “high risk environments.” (“39,000 out of 650,000 were in high risk environment”)02

It takes one anonymous caller with a false allegation to have a child removed from a home.03 A caseworker may claim that a “parent has a history of mental illness” or “a history of substance abuse,” without naming a doctor, offering specialized diagnoses, or supplying medical records.04 Many parents are accused of “Abandonment,” a broadly applied term covering single parents working long hours at low-wage jobs, suffering from a terminal illness, or taken into custody for circumstances surrounding a traffic ticket. And vague general terms such as, the parents are “impairing the emotional and mental well-being of this child” which covers such a broad spectrum. Accusations of domestic violence are the number one reason why children are taken from their parents and homes, but this could involve minor offenses like one partner ‘pushing’ another partner, in which even the victim – the one that was pushed – suffers the same fate as the aggressor, namely both will be separated from their children. In other words, CPS will petition against the victim the same as the aggressor. (See CPS Policy Manual)

The more children in foster care, the more money a local CPS agency receives from the federal government, with the funds distributed throughout the community. Funding recipients include: teachers, attorneys, doctors, judges, therapists, caseworkers, foster parents, coaches, sub-agencies such as Family First and Head Start, insurance companies, consultants, outside contractors, and watchdog agencies.05 Caseworkers and foster parents are working together for financial gain.06 A boyfriend, friend, neighbor, or acquaintance, of a CPS caseworker may recruited by the caseworker to be a foster parent, each of them financially benefiting from the transaction. The caseworker can continue to place twelve or more children into her boyfriend’s home, at a further tandem benefit, despite the CPS policy manual’s strongly suggesting a maximum of four children per home. There are no penalties when a caseworker does not comply with the Policy Manual.

Millions of U.S. households have come to use “Children as Currency.”

According to AFCARS findings, 64 percent of U.S. foster children are abused.07 Those closest to the industry, ex supervisors, case workers and journalist that cover this industry; believe a more accurate number is closer to 87 percent. The forms of abuse that are being reported from every State have become increasingly sadistic, with infants and toddlers raped, and young children physically beaten, forced to eat feces, chained to structures, drugged and left in cages and dark rooms for days.08 Many children do not receive adequate water and food, and 80 percent are given sedatives, supplied by CPS caseworkers (pharmaceutical companies have contracts with the Department of Human Services).09 It is the caseworker, not a health professional, deciding which foster children are to medicate. Children on medication can be labeled “Special Needs” (grounds to pull in more money), leading to unnecessary labeling, medication, and surgeries. In 2008, 3,292 children went missing (presumed dead) after entering the CPS system, a statistic only representing three states (Ohio, Washington, and Colorado).10 The National Child Abuse & Neglect Data System (NCANDS) reported that, in 2012, 1,545 U.S. children died from child abuse.11 For Several years, the Children’s Bureau (a department within DHS/CPS) reported 1,000 deaths a year within the CPS system.12 The Children’s Bureau also rounds off to the nearest thousand – so if the real tally of children who die in state custody is 1,499, only 1,000 will be reported within the Children’s Bureau13. CPS Caseworkers have legal immunity, and cannot be held accountable for their mistakes, poor judgment, or bad decisions that may have led to a missing child, abuse, or death.14

There is somewhere between 24,000 to 200,000 eighteen to twenty three year-olds (a number that increases annually) are “released” from the foster care system, into greater society, every year.15 Note: foster children are released into society at different ages, anywhere from 18 to 23, and divided in ethic, ages, population and class categories resulting in drastically different federal reports, misleading the true total number of foster children released into society annually)

Emotionally scarred, and often without money or a support network, these teens represent our country’s fastest-growing homeless population.

Reforming CPS has failed relentlessly for over thirty years because of the entanglement of the funds throughout the community. There is a profound conflict of interest between the persons who are in an authoritative position to protect children (CPS caseworkers), and the fact that those same persons have the possibility to financially benefit themselves or their associates from every child placed into foster care.

Instead, we should consider permanently shutting down Children Protective Services. This would save billions of dollars a year within our federal Government. These funds could be relocated to construct safe and healthy learning environments as state of the art Orphanages, where employees and supervisors would be required to have a Masters Degrees and Doctrines in Child Development. With a home-like warm atmosphere closely moderated surveillance. Not unlike the Montessori method where children are introduced to caring for small animals and learn to grow vegetables. Creating thousands of high paying jobs. These funds could also be distributed to the public schools systems. Currently billion’s of dollars are being used to support the barbaric treatment of our most vulnerable citizens. By eliminating the ‘children as currency’ epidemic, we would help reign in the corruption and intrusive culture of Children Protective Services, and therefore ensure a more prosperous future for the children that truly need our help.

As a society we could borrow the courage and logistics from the Director of the National Institute of mental health, Dr. Robert Felix’s radical decision in 1973 to close every State Hospitals in the USA, because the rampant abuse toward our most vulnerable citizens in those institutions.16 Reforms of State hospitals had been attempted for 80 years prior to Dr. Felix’s decision, yet the culture of cruelty within State hospitals had become institutionalized. For the sake of the hundred of thousands if not millions of children being used and abused in foster care, we must reconstruct CPS as we know it today in order to stop the ‘children as currency’ policy governing CPS in every State in the country.

02 AFSCARS Report /Children's Bureau/ Child Welfare Gateway In these reports the charts read 39,000 (children) were in "high risk environments." In the CPS industry this simply means endanger. Comparing the yearly number of children in foster care with the number of children in "high risk environments," this comes out to only 6 percent of children in foster care were in dangerous environments.

09 "Encouraged by caseworkers, a majority of foster parents sedate "special needs" children 24 hours a day. CPS claims that 80 percent of children in foster care are in need of medication" 80% of CPS children on medication, comes from statistic that 80% have either 'emotional problems' or "half of all children in foster care are considered having "chronic medical problems" both labels require medication. See AFSCAR REPORT. Also See pharmaceutical contract with DHS. ftp://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/05-06/bill/asm/ab_2701-2750/ab_2730_cfa_20060424_155502_asm_comm.html

12 AFSCAR REPORT. 'Child welfare Outcomes Report to Congress 08-11, 'II: Keeping Children Safe' C. II p. See footnote in this report: "The total number of victims reported in this report is rounded to the nearest 1,000."

When the Children's Bureau (a division of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services) annually reports the number of children who die in CPS custody, that number has been rounded off to the nearest thousand, a practice that has continued for years - so if the real number of children losing their lives in CPS custody was 1,499 in a given year, the Bureau would report it as 1,000.

13 Same as Footnote #12 see: AFSCAR REPORT. 'Child welfare Outcomes Report to Congress 08-11, 'II: Keeping Children Safe' C. II p.5 in footnote "The total number of victims reported in this report is rounded to the nearest 1,000."

14http://www.childlaw.us/legal_immunity_for_CPS_workers/#.VxfdvZX2aM8See, e.g., Abdouch v. Burger, 426 F.3d 982 (8th Cir. 2005) and Babcock v. Tyler (884 F.2d 497 (9th Cir. 1989 "law provides for public employee immunity from liability for an injury caused by the employee instituting or prosecuting any judicial or administrative proceeding within the scope of their employment, even if he or she acts maliciously and without probable cause" (absolute immunity shields social workers to the extent that their role is functionally equivalent to that of a prosecutor) Gray v. Poole, 275 F.3d 1113, (D.C. Cir. 2002) (qualified immunity covers social service workers acting as investigators, but when testifying as witnesses they are protected by absolute immunity." Also See CPS Policy Manual.